A Ramble About Jedi Christianity

Several years ago I saw a book in the bookstore that I knew at the time I just had to have, Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters by Dick Staub. Not being able to afford it at the time, I read through the first chapter which had been made available at the time and it sounded great. I thought this is something I really need to check out. It was in this book that I first read the idea that “our generation has no Yodas” referring to those of us in the Church. It was around this time that I also came across another book, The Dharma of Star Wars by Matthew Bortolin which used ideas and concepts from the Jedi in Star Wars to present Buddhist teaching and ideas. Being both a religious studies nerd and a Star Wars geek I naturally bought both when I had the chance.

I began reading the book by Staub with relish hoping to really find some good wisdom and “Jedi-up” my own faith and practice. But as I got further into it, the more disappointed I became. The book itself made reference to different sayings and characters from Star Wars and had a few quotes from a few spiritual authors, but in general it became apparent that the author really didn't know what “Jedi Christianity” was supposed to look like either. He presented the same basics of Christian faith and practice which are taught over and over in most evangelical churches every Sunday, and didn't himself seem to understand the more meaty truths which those spiritual authors were trying to convey. It seemed like he promised the world, but didn't know how to deliver it. Needless to say, I was so disappointed with the book that after the first few chapters, I skimmed through it to see if it went anywhere. Finding that it didn't, I couldn't bring myself to continue it.

The problem wasn't with Staub's intentions in writing the book. And I understand his statement when he says that “this generation has no Yodas.” But in seeking to bring us the wisdom of Christianity's own Jedi masters, he himself didn't understand how to use or interpret the wisdom they had to impart and so he fell back to the ground which was familiar and which he knew he could safely talk about. As I have written about before, this isn't uncommon among pastors of any denomination.

In modern American culture, to be a “Jedi Master” at something is along the same lines as what the term “Kung Fu” means to the Chinese. It means to study and practice your chosen discipline so much that you achieve a mastery or proficiency at it that goes beyond the normal every day that others get by with.

In the Christian faith, there have been true Jedi Masters who have walked the path of Jesus Christ so closely that Jesus was nearly impossible to miss in everything they did and said. I, and probably you, can think of several right off the top of my head; St. Paul the Apostle, St. Peter the Apostle, St. Francis of Assisi, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. John of the Cross, Hudson Taylor, and Watchman Nee just to name a few. Many of these Masters left writings behind, some intentionally and some unintentionally, for others to learn from and imitate them just as they also imitated Christ.

Becoming a Jedi Christian begins along the same lines that Yoda expressed to his apprentices. It requires the deepest of commitments and the most serous mind. It requires that you not only read what Jesus taught, but also that you follow it. Like the Jedi, it requires that you let go of those attachments which cause you to fear losing them and as a result keep you from the love He commands and calls us to, because fear leads to hate and hate to the suffering of those who don't know Him. Like the Jedi, it requires that you not rely on yourself as much as you rely on the One who binds us, penetrates us, and holds the galaxy together. The Jedi Masters of Christianity gave up everything that weighed them down so that they could gain Christ, the only goal that was of any real importance to them. All, like the Master, were persecuted, some by fellow “Christians”, most were physically beaten, many were tortured, and many were tortured to death. But in there lives, however long or short they were, they wielded such a power through the Grace of God that lives were changed and the world would never be the same.

In Christian, well... mostly Catholic parlance we call these Jedi Masters “Saints” because we can look at their lives and writings and see Jesus loud and clear in them. All too often we tend to hold them up on pedestals and think, “oh, that's only for the very special. I can't do that.” The truth however is that we all, every person who professes to follow Jesus Christ, are called to be “Saints.” Jedi Christianity isn't for just the occasional super Christian, it's meant for all of us to walk in their footsteps because they walked in His.

The reason why there are no Yodas in our generation is because these Jedi Masters have been ignored for far too long or placed on the “too holy for you” shelf for far too long, much like Jesus Christ Himself. The radical way in which they abandoned the world to follow Christ is all but scandalous is many if not most churches, and it terrifies pastors because it calls them to leave behind their own comfortable middle class lives to engage in something that will be ridiculed and demonized.

I don't know if the Lord will grant me the Grace to truly be able to follow in their footsteps, but the more I get to know Him and experience Him the more I realize that this is the goal I want more than anything else. I may never reach “Yoda” status, and I might spend the rest of my life as a “Padawan” just trying to figure out which end of the lightsaber you don't point towards you. But I have come to realize that for me, nothing else will do, and no other goal is worth anything except for this, not for my own glory, but so that I might gain everything God wants me to gain in His Son Jesus Christ. Will this mean hardship? Yes. Will this mean taking actions that make absolutely no sense from the world's point of view? Yes. Will this mean possibly following both them and Him in suffering the way they did? Probably, and it terrifies me at the prospect. But beyond that fear lies God who is perfect love and who casts out all fear through faith in Him. Beyond that fear lies knowledge of the power of His Grace and love against which nothing can stand. Beyond that fear lies His Eternal Life and Kingdom, union with Him through His Son Jesus Christ. There can be no greater goal than the one which God laid down for us through His Son our Lord Jesus Christ.

There may be no Yodas now, but it doesn't have to stay that way. All it takes is someone willing to bet the whole of their lives on a sure thing.

A Ramble About Alternate Timelines

My family and I have recently gotten into the SyFy series Eureka. It's about a secret government run town full of mad scientists who invent things that only exist in science fiction (the irony is palpable). One of the major recurring plot lines of the show is alternate time lines. If you're a Back to the Future fan then this should be old hat. If you're not, let me explain.

An alternate time line is what happens when someone travels back to the past and changes something. This change then has a ripple effect through the chain of cause and effect so that when the person returns to his original point in time he now exists in an alternate time line with a history from the point where the change occurred that he doesn't remember happening. The principle is that even the smallest deviations from the cause and effect chain can have massive repercussions. The farther back in history you change something, the more likely that a single, seemingly insignificant change, maybe a word or even just a feeling will cause major changes to established history. For example, what would have happened if instead of just a romantic fling with a French girl during WWI (yes, it's documented that he had a son with her), a young lieutenant Adolph Hitler deserted his unit and ran off to be with her? No rise of Nazi Germany. No second World War as we knew it. No Holocaust. Likely, no modern State of Israel. History would have radically changed from that point on. The fate of millions hinged on how he felt about a young French girl at a single moment in his life.

I was recently talking to my daughter about why God doesn't seem to act or let us know something we need to know until the last possible moment. Instead He asks us to trust Him. And when He does let us know something ahead of time, it's usually pretty vague. It's enough to get our attention, but not enough for us to really act on yet (at least that's been my experience). More often than not, He remains completely silent on any forthcoming events in our lives until they happen.

God understands cause and effect better than anyone. This should be obvious, but a lot of the time we don't seem to appreciate that fact. He knows what everyone is thinking, feeling, and doing at any given point in time. He knows the exact position of every sub-atomic particle and its direction (impossible for us, not for Him) at any point in time. He knows all possible outcomes of any given moment of interaction. He knows with absolute certainty what track one choice will place us on over another. He also knows with absolute certainty what set of choices and outcomes are the absolute best for us and everyone else around us. In other words, He knows all possible alternate time lines which could emerge from any different set of possible causes from a single thought or feeling to a change in the breeze.

He also knows, given His desired outcome for us, which of our choices would lead to that desired outcome and which won't. This is why He withholds information from us until the point He deems we need it. He knows, better than we do, that if He were to give that information too early there is a certainty it would influence our behavior in such a way to where the desired outcome would no longer be possible. If He were to give the means to accomplish something too early, it might make us feel more secure, but it will most certainly keep everything which needs to happen from happening. Even the slightest deviations can have huge consequences; consequences which He can see and we can't.

So, God asks us to trust Him with it. When He tells us to do something now, we need to do it now. A good example of a botched opportunity was Israel refusing to invade Canaan when they were fresh out of Egypt because they saw the large and scary residents there. They only found out forty years later that the Canaanites were so terrified of Israel they they could have just walked in and pushed them over. Instead, they had to do laps around a mountain in the desert for forty years and wait for the scared generation to die off.

God asks us to trust Him because He actually does know what will and won't happen in any given set of circumstances and choices. When He refuses to explain what's going on, He does so because He doesn't want us to botch the best He's got for us. He only continues to say “you need to trust Me on this.” When He can safely give us hints or information, He does. When He can't, He doesn't. When He withholds the resources we need for something until the last possible minute, He does so because He knows that if He doesn't it will screw everything up. He knows how far He can trust us with something better than we do, and though it may irritate us, we should take comfort in that.

A Ramble About Self-Confidence

As I was riding back from Las Vegas recently in the back of my sister's car with my dad, he said something which has gained a lot of traction in this world. He said something along the lines of “you can do anything you want if you have the self-confidence.” Self-esteem and self-confidence are big ideas, and it is true that those who possess them seem to accomplish more of their goals in this life. This world operates on self-esteem and self-confidence, and they are required in order to mesh your gears and get anywhere. And this is precisely the problem with them.

Self-esteem and self-confidence are totally opposed to the teaching and Path of Jesus Christ. They are one of the big three innocuous gates through which demons (literal or figurative the result is the same) flood through and open us up to worse enslavement to various kinds of manifestations of sin. Self-esteem is in fact the worst one because no matter how hard you try and stamp it out it crops back up.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to place our faith in God through Jesus Christ, not ourselves. Faith in oneself draws us away from placing one's trust in Him for something, and faith in oneself is misplaced faith because we are fallible, and He is not. We don't know which way is best for us, and He does. We don't know what's five minutes down the road, and He sees it clearly. We are blinded to seeing only the extremely short term, He sees the bigger picture. We know only what we want in the moment, He knows what we need in any given moment.

Self-esteem allows you to function and thrive within this world, but it does so at the cost of propelling you away from God and His Grace which is activated only by faith in Him working through love, and it is this Grace which effects our salvation. It is this Grace which energizes and enables the charismata, not self-confidence. Self-esteem or self-confidence doesn't amplify Grace, it dampens and quenches it.

St. John wrote:

"Don’t love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father’s love isn’t in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s. The world is passing away with its lusts, but he who does God’s will remains forever.” (1 John 2:15-17, WEB)

Adherence to self-esteem and self-confidence is loving both this world and the things of it. This is why those who adhere to it function so well in this world, because this world knows and loves its own. But for the Christian the cost of “fitting in” is far too high. This is why the Saints of old were at such odds with the world. They were poor, homeless, despised, and persecuted all because they weren't willing to pay that price and throw open the floodgates to be pulled away from Christ who is our life.

You either depend on yourself, or you depend on God. The scripture says in Jeremiah, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, who makes flesh his strength.” Dependence on oneself only hastens the descent into the madness of Gehenna. The only way to reverse that descent is to stop depending on and trusting yourself and your own abilities. You are smoke and dust which blows away with the slightest breeze.

There is a cost to rejecting self-esteem and trusting in God alone. It is that you won't be able to function or thrive in this world. You will be rejected and despised. You will be poor. You will possibly be tormented and die for it. But in this you will be in good company, so were the Saints of old, and so was Jesus Christ Himself who is our pattern and our Master. We can do no better than for our lives to imitate His in every detail.

A Ramble About Charismata

I was recently re-reading the introduction to the writings of St. Peter of Damascus in the Philokalia when something stuck out to me and lodged itself in my mind. Writing around 1000AD, he said this:

“Nevertheless the Lord, being beyond perfection and being wisdom itself, strikes at the root; for He urges those who would follow Him through the imitation of supreme virtue to renounce not only material goods or possessions, but even their own soul, that is to say, their own thoughts and will. Because they knew this, the fathers fled from the world as a hindrance to perfection; and not only from the world but also from their own will for the same reason. No one of them ever did what he himself wanted. Some lived in bodily obedience, so that in the place of Christ they would have a spiritual father guiding their every thought. Others, … lived in the desert and had God Himself as their teacher,... Others pursued the 'royal way', leading a life of silence with one or two companions: these had one another as counselors in doing God's will. … Nowadays, however, whether we are under obedience or in authority, we are not willing to abandon our own will, and so none of us makes any progress.” (St. Peter of Damascus, “A Treasury of Divine Knowledge.” The Philokalia, vol iii. Palmer, G.E.H, Philip Sherrand, and Kallistos Ware, editors and translators. London: Faber and Faber, 1984. Pgs. 87-88. Emphasis mine)

This brings to mind something Origen said as he wrote around 248AD. He says:

“Traces of those signs and wonders are still preserved among those who regulate their lives by the teachings of the Gospel.” And he also says, “There are still preserved among Christians traces of that Holy Spirit that appeared in the form of a dove. They expel evil spirits, perform many cures, and foresee certain events.”

Less than a hundred years prior, St. Irenaeus, writing around 180AD says this:

“Those who are truly His disciples, receiving grace from Him,... perform works in His name, in order to promote the welfare of others, according to the gift that each one has received from Him. Some truly and certainly cast out devils. … Others have certain foreknowledge of things to come. … Still others heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and the sick are made whole. What is more, as I have said, even the dead have been raised up and remained among us for many years. … The name of our Lord Jesus Christ even now confers benefits. It cures thoroughly and effectively all who anywhere believe on Him.”

There are things to be learned from the writings of the Church fathers, as well as the epistles of St. Paul in the Scriptures, as they progress over the centuries, especially where the charismata, or “spiritual gifts” are concerned. In the Scriptures, we find the charismata active and thriving and being written about as though common, undeniable occurences. We see this state of affairs unchanged for nearly two centuries. But as time carries on, the writers talk about “traces” of the charismata still being seen performed by those “who regulate their lives by the teachings of the Gospel,” as though it is no longer as regular an occurrence as it had been. But the farther on you go, you only get snippets of word about the charismata; this particular Bishop, that particular Saint. The miracles associated with St. Patrick of Ireland (c. 400AD), or St. Nicholas of Myra (c. 300AD), for example. And it becomes something attributed to mere myths and legends because the people aren't seeing them in their own lives or with anyone they know.

Today, most churches act as if they no longer truly exist. Many teach this openly. There are some churches that claim to have them, but when you hold up observations of these “modern charismata” to the biblical and historical descriptions most of the time either they simply don't match, or they are proven to be outright charletanism. Many churches now try and discover what your “spiritual gift” is by a personality test. “Do you have the gift of administration or teaching? Let's find out.” And the mistake here is the inability to make the distinction between the charismata and natural gifts of personality.

The charismata are displays of power which are themselves powered by the uncreated energies of God Himself. According to the writings of the Church, including Scripture, you didn't have to guess what your gift was, and you certainly didn't take a written test to discover it. When these displays of power happened, they were obvious and inexplicable other than God to everyone within view.

So why don't we see them as widespread as they were in the first few centuries? Why do they seem to have been relegated to particular Saints and no one else? St. Peter of Damascus in his talking about the fervor of the fathers to abandon everything to follow Christ answers this question for us when he says, “Nowadays, however, whether we are under obedience or in authority, we are not willing to abandon our own will, and so none of us makes any progress.”

There is a reason why the charismata become so rare over the progress of centuries. It is because there come to be so few people who abandon everything to follow Christ. In the first few centuries of the Church, they knew and understood what the Gospel was. The Christians then knew and understood what Jesus taught and they regulated their lives by it, drawing closer and closer to God through Jesus Christ, and moving farther and farther from the devil, the world, and from their own fleshly desires and the charismata were energized and activated in a powerful way. They knew and understood that there was no middle ground. You were either moving towards God or away from Him, but you couldn't stand still. And they chose to move towards Him regardless of what it cost them in this world.

The charismata aren't dead in this world. They're dormant within Christians who refuse to abandon their own wills. They lie disused, like a power tool that's never been plugged in, within people who profess Christ with their lips but refuse to obey Him because of what it will cost them in this world. They sit within a people that are told by their shepherds that they no longer exist and all they have to do to be saved is to believe. And all the while they are missing the fundamental truth that true and genuine belief requires that you act on that belief. If you believe in Jesus Christ, did you not hear Him when He said to let go of everything and follow Him? Did you not hear Him when He said to crucify your own wills and desires so that He could live through you? Did you not hear Him when He commanded to love and expect nothing in return? Did you not hear Him when He said “forgive and you will be forgiven”? It is true that to be saved you must believe in Jesus Christ. Understand what that word “believe” means.

When you draw closer to Him, letting go of all the things that hold you away from Him, then Grace flows through you like power to electrical circuits. It becomes the energy of your salvation, and it powers the charismata otherwise lying dormant. The closer you draw to Him, the more His Grace flows through you. The more His Grace flows through you, the closer you are able to draw to Him.

The ancient Saints understood this principle, and they understood where it must begin. It must begin with the renunciation of everything to which you are attached which keeps you from drawing closer to Him. It must also begin with the choice to care about others regardless of yourself. Love is the opposite of self, and where love exists, self cannot be. The opposite is also true. Where Self is, love isn't. This is how you know what is of your self, and what is of God, because God is love. Renouncing all those things which held you back, and reaching forward in love towards God through Jesus Christ Grace will begin to flow.

It is our refusal to give up our own wills, our own desires and attachments, our own grievances and injuries which prevent us from making any progress along the Path, progress which is clearly marked by the appearance of the charismata in some way. And it is fear which is most often the cause of this refusal. St. John says that perfect love casts out all fear.

The charismata aren't gone. The “mechanism” which transforms sinners into Saints is still active and powerful, it only needs to be utilized. The only things which separates us from them are our choices here and now.

A Ramble About Our Vision

I started writing this blog four years ago upon the encouragement of several friends who liked what I had to say when I wrote and posted notes on Facebook. I have written what the Lord has laid on my heart in speaking about who we are, what discipleship looks like, and in writing about the Church. Today, I am writing about a vision which the Lord has laid on the hearts of my wife and I for several years now. We have discussed it at length, looked into it, prayed about it, and prayed about it some more. And now, we've come to understand that the Lord has told us that now is the time for us to start moving towards it and making it happen in a real and meaningful way.

When we moved from Idaho down to Arizona, my immediate plan was to find a job as quickly as possible. Since it had been a while, I thought the best and easiest place to start would be at the bottom in a service or retail job of some kind. So I started putting out applications to various places like Walmart, Home Depot, McDonald's, a vending job, and pretty much anything I could think of that should have been fairly easy for someone to get hired on with and something that would at least allow me to pay rent and bills.

Nothing has worked out. Instead, it seems like a concerted effort to keep me from employment. My phone ran out of service days right as I was waiting for a call back and we weren't able to reactivate it for a week. I found out that my two primary references weren't answering their phones when businesses were trying to call them. At an interview for McDonald's (of all places), the fact that I have degrees worked against me because they assumed I'd be leaving in less than six months once I found a better job. So, nothing, nada, zippo, no can do.

So now, two months in and we're struggling, praying and asking God what it is He wants us to do here when we can't even find work to provide for ourselves and it seems like we're being actively worked against in this regard.

In spite of my job problems, the Lord has allowed my wife, Heidi, to look into the foster and adoption situation here in Bullhead City and the surrounding area. Heidi, ever since I met her, has wanted to work with special needs kids, especially with a view towards fostering and adopting kids that no one else wants or will take. When we were living in California, she was a teacher's aide for a preschool with kids with special needs, and when she was younger she had hoped to go on and work in orphanages in Africa or Eastern Europe with this in mind. So, sensing that this is what the Lord wanted her to do, she began looking into it here and found that there is a great need for it in this area. Further, the worker she spoke with has begun us on the process towards becoming foster parents even though she knows we can't take in kids right now in the living situation that we're in. She said that the process takes a long time so it should work out. Heidi has already gone to the first class required for caring for foster kids, and I'm being sent the paperwork to attend the next class at the end of this month.

Further, things have been going well as we've become involved with a local church, City Bible Church. This has been a great blessing for us in getting our kids and ourselves used to people again after living as isolated as we were for so long. Our kids have been getting involved with their youth group and Awana programs and we've been trying to get involved with an adult group and to help out with the kids' groups on Wednesday nights. We and our children have been able to make friends again, and the kids especially have been very excited about that.

For several years now, my wife and I have envisioned a home for kids with special needs, but really it's much more than that. We've envisioned a Mission. We want it to be a place where we can take in kids, foster or adopted, who have moderate to severe disabilities and who can't find a placement anywhere else. We want to be able to offer respite care and day care to families who are struggling to care for their disabled children at home. Moreso, we have envisioned a ranch where those older residents who are physically capable can find work and help keep the place running. We want to do sustainable aquaponic agriculture to provide fresh food for the Mission and assistance for poor families. We also would eventually like to train service dogs and have horses for theraputic riding.

This Mission is where our hearts are. This is our vision, and we feel that the Lord has closed other doors for now and asked us to start moving towards this. But we also know that we can't do it alone. At the moment, we have no other resources but our faith. And the Lord has put it in our hearts that this is to be a faith Mission, meaning that we are not to ask anyone directly for the resources we need. If someone chooses to give then it needs to be an act of faith between that person and God and no one else.

We're still in the process of learning all of the laws and regulations which would apply to such an endeavor. And we're still trying to discern everything that we would need to move forward with it. We know for now that we need to have a proven, stable income which we can show to the state before we can start taking in foster kids or before we can adopt any kids. This is something we don't have yet. We also know that we need a big enough house or building with enough bedrooms not only for our own immediate family but also for anyone and everyone who would be coming to join us. Such a house or building would have to either be already set up with wheelchair access or be able to be set up that way fairly easily, and be within a reasonably quick drive to the nearest hospital. And if it is going to be here in Mohave County, Arizona then it has to be fully air conditioned because outside air temperatures can reach 133F (56.1C) during the summertime. We will also need a decent amount of land in order to set up and operate the kind of Mission we are describing. We think it will need to be on the order of between 40 and 80 acres minimum.

We need people to partner with us to make this a reality. We need prayer in particular. We also know that we can't operate a Mission like this with just the two of us and our kids. And we need the resources to do it.

Right now, I would ask for prayer especially for my family for the means to take care of our family as we continue to look for work and a stable income. And in everything, we ask for prayer that the Lord's will would be done in everything. If you are willing and interested in partnering with us in some way to make this Mission a reality, then please leave a message for me in the comments below.